


The Easiest Thing in the World

by saintofnovember



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Asexual Character, Asexual Henry Cheng, Asexuality Spectrum, Author Takes Liberties with Long Words, Blusey - Freeform, Call Down the Hawk Spoilers, F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Multi, Post-Canon, Road Trips, Spoilers, Summer road trip, The Raven King Spoilers, Traveling, disparaging comments about root beer, except henry's asexual, gansey and henry are the equivalent of those romantic poets, gansey is an anxious boy, i guess, i mean this is gansey what did you expect, pynch - Freeform, sarchengsey, so it's all just very emotional, sort of CDTH canon, who get flustered at the sight of an ankle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:08:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26329165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintofnovember/pseuds/saintofnovember
Summary: Spring melted into exam season, and exams melted into summer, and summer melted into an all-american road trip in which Gansey, Blue, and Henry melted into each other.In April, Gansey had been kissed and been dead and had come back. He'd had his heart restarted, and he was starting to wish it hadn’t been.  Feelings were far worse when he had to keep ignoring all the ones that pressed in at him from the future- they were bright and hopeful and messy and it hurt that he couldn't tell how much pain had to happen before he got there.He squeezed his eyes shut."Don't throw it away," he told himself. "Don't throw it away."OR as i like to call it, Gansey Goes on a Road Trip and Falls In Love With Everybody, because honestly, what else is he to do?
Relationships: Henry Cheng & Richard Gansey III & Ronan Lynch & Adam Parrish & Blue Sargent, Henry Cheng/Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 34
Kudos: 54





	1. The Possibility of Leaves

**Author's Note:**

> the vibe for this fic is [a catalogue of afternoons](https://youtu.be/Ubjylmxrj9o)
> 
> updates every two(ish) weeks. (i do have things to do but i am excited abt this fic)

Gansey died in April.

Gansey died in April, and it hurt. Dying wasn’t an easy thing, no matter which way you looked at it. It was the ending force, the only one that didn’t have an equal opposite reaction pulling it back onto course. Or perhaps, he thought, (he had a lot of time to think, when time was circular) that was only how the _living_ thought of dying. He knew, now, that dying was part of a great and ancient cycle. Energy was in the living, and when the living things died, the energy seeped through wood and stone and earth until it met itself, again.

That’s how it had felt, anyway.

Ganse died in April, and he came back.

 _Things were better in threes_ , he mused. He’d died once, again, and it was quite probable he would do it a third time, given the opportunity of old age. The forest in him _hummed_ , at this. It knew that dying was merely a moment in time, a push-pull, energy for energy. It knew this, and yet here it was, in the shape of a boy. A wishful, headstrong, _mortal_ boy.

Gansey died in April, and it was hard.

It was hard to squeeze himself into _one second per second one breath in one breath out another second_ when his whole _being_ was straining to stretch out and around the ocean of time and go for a deep swim. It was hard to reign himself in, become one with the mortal world every morning when it was all he could do to remain _boy-shaped._

Gansey died in April, and he was brought back to life by his friends.

Adam had stood by him, silent and attentive, Ronan had ducked his head in a deference he would not show to anyone else, Blue had held onto his hands, and Henry had watched and waited and used his words to bring Gansey back to earth. They were courtiers around their king, and they waited for the time in which it would be easier for them to hold him.

Gansey died in April, and he couldn’t stop noticing _other things_ dying around him. Perhaps not _dying_ , per say, but _ending._ Things kept ending, and it kept _reminding_ him of the dizzyingly tiresome linear shape of the world.

Blue did her best to help Gansey, but in truth, they were all beginning to feel the press of time.

Adam left for college a week before the road trip began, citing summer classes and getting settled at Harvard, and drove off from the Barns amid shouts and laughter and promises that yes, time was still a circle, and yes they would meet again. The ones left behind trooped back into the house, rather subdued, because now that the separation had begun, it was easier for the users of linear time to feel the inevitability of that magical, endless summer coming to a close, and with it, the reminder that things were _continuing on_.

At some point amid their deflating, Ronan had wandered away to tuck himself into the corner of a horsehair sofa with a decidedly sour expression and a worse-looking drink. Not having much experience with the latter herself, Blue nonetheless approached him with as much pissy attitude of her own as she could muster-- and to her surprise, Ronan put the bottle down. Not far enough away, Blue thought, but enough to be going on with.

She offered her fist, and Ronan seemed to muster just enough energy into his limbs to complete the gesture before sinking back among the stiff pillows. The silence hung in the air like so many wet leaves, words and emotions trembling around them, unable to fall. 

Ronan looked away abruptly, a muscle in his jaw working, and Blue took this as her cue to go. Perhaps Adam’s long absence would finally give Ronan a reason to answer his phone, for once. 

The beginning of the summer wore on, as it had that tendency to do; and so it was the third week of June that found Gansey, Blue, and Henry in various stages of unconventional sitting on the very dusty floor of Monmouth Manufacturing. 

“Blue, could you hand me the- the uh-” Gansey paused. “Glue. With the blue cap?” He spoke from a criss-cross-apple-sauce that the strictest first-grade teacher would have been proud of, and didn’t look up for an answer as he fussed with a church spire that was adamant about remaining discouragingly bent. 

Blue was on her back in the sun, looking for patterns in the high ceiling, so she said only, frowning, “Is that a joke?” 

“What?” Gansey asked, distractedly. “No, I want the glue.”

Blue huffed a sort of laugh as she quested her fingertips around the floor near her before finally rolling over to search in earnest. She finally located the tiny bottle a foot to Gansey’s left and handed it to him.

“Thanks.”

She butted her head into his shoulder lightly in answer. Blue herself was unsure if this was positive feedback, or some sort of slightly-passive-aggressive-feline response, but Gansey didn’t seem to notice, so it was alright.

Crawling on her hands and knees back over to her bar of sunlight and curling up there, Blue found herself eye to eye with Henry. Laying backwards off the couch, his perfectly coiffed hair just brushing the ground, he presented quite the acrobatic picture. Blue cocked her head. He blinked at her.

Then she smiled, and as if a string had been pulled taut between them, so did he. They stared at each other for a moment longer, (but what was time, here, in this elastic afternoon) before bursting into peals of laughter. The noise echoed around the vast room, and Gansey, distracted, finally looked up.

“What?” He asked, pushing his glasses up and running a hand haphazardly through his hair.

They only laughed harder, hiccuping and gasping for breath before the couch decided it had had quite enough of Henry, and evicted him to a giggling heap on the floor.

Gansey smiled at them, albeit with confusion. At that, something inside his chest which had been holding itself very tight unfurled itself, offering careful leaves to the sunlight.

_Don’t throw it away._

Gansey closed his eyes, the warm light faded, and the leaves tucked themselves reluctantly back within his ribs. He knew that if he were to water this sapling it would take all his strength to keep it from growing into the sun, and he knew that if it grew into the sun, other people would have to see it, and if other people saw it, he would have to cut it down, and so, all in all, it was better not to water it at all.

“Ganseyman,” Henry asked tentatively. “I didn’t crush your town man, did I?”

A slight shake of his head, and Gansey blinked his eyes open, offering a smile. “No, no, of course not.”

Henry smiled back, but he cocked his head, and Gansey turned his gaze away before he could see the question Henry’s eyes held. He couldn’t answer, so it was best if the question wasn’t asked at all.

Besides, the church spire was in need of straightening, and he needed to add another outbuilding to Aglionby. 

Beside him, Blue stretched out in the sun, her multi-colored crocheted bra and heavily embroidered jean shorts moving about with her. Finally, she yawned and curled onto her side, eyelashes fluttering closed. Gansey’s heart gave a hopeful little flutter.

A surreptitious glance to Henry provided him with the view of a hand reaching lazily towards the ceiling as its fingers flexed almost experimentally, another arm cast over his forehead in an attempt to shade his eyes from the sun. He looked lovely and full of wonder and at ease and Gansey cut his eyes back to the church spire, his cheeks hot.

 _Don’t throw it away_.

His eyes squeezed shut once more.

In April, Gansey had been kissed and been dead and had come back. He'd had his heart restarted, and he was starting to wish it hadn’t been. Feelings were far worse when he had to keep ignoring all the ones that pressed in at him from the future- they were bright and hopeful and messy and it hurt that he couldn't tell how much pain had to happen before he got there.


	2. Taking Root

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> note: in this chapter, all reference to “biscuits” refers to the american kind. basically: they’re bread, not cookies.  
> and yes i hate rootbeer and that is a plotpoint
> 
> hope you enjoy this chapter!! i'm having an absolute lovely time writing this fic.

The idea was born on a Tuesday afternoon. Henry, Gansey, and Blue were laying in a field outside the Barns, waiting for Ronan to finish yelling at his cows, or sitting morosely on the edge of a pasture, or sulking on the roof of an old shed, or whatever he’d been occupying himself with without Adam around. He seemed more angry now, that Adam was gone away, if that was at all possible. _Waspish_ , Gansey thought, with a little bit of a shudder and more of a thrill. 

Gansey was on his back, watching fat, lazy bugs dip their way across his little piece of zealous blue sky. Beside him, in the tall grass, Blue and Henry spoke quietly to each other, the cadence of their voices rising and falling like gentle rolling hills. Every so often, Gansey would catch a few words of their conversation, something like _old_ or _bobcat_ or _sesquipedalianism_. (Perhaps this last one was just wishful thinking, however; he’d been reading about long words the previous night, and now they were all ricocheting around his head, and finding places to rest where they wouldn’t come wafting out of his mouth at inopportune moments.)

In any case, he couldn’t make out much of Blue and Henry’s conversation, for which he was grateful. He enjoyed the silence of the Barns, which was far more silent a place than he’d ever been in before. Despite the near-constant buzz of sun-drunk insects, or the wild caw of an irreverently rapturous Chainsaw, the Barns was nestled in a heavy _silence_ that allowed space for thoughts to pelt eagerly down tree-lined paths, pausing at little reflective pools before dashing on again, in search of the next overgrown wonder. 

Here Gansey laughed inwardly at himself; it seemed all his metaphors were slowly taking root and growing into _trees_ . The first time he’d died, he’d thought in political maneuvers and kings; he’d been a reluctant product of his own environment. Now, after he’d died a second time, all he could think about were _leaves_ and _roots_ and _one second per second_ and when happiness bubbled up in his chest, all he could do was smile.

He did so now, grinning up at the exhaustive blue, and listening to his Blue, and his… and Henry, talk about... swords. 

“I’m just _saying_ ,” Henry was saying, gently, “that perhaps a long sword _isn’t quite…_ ideal. For you.”

Without even turning his head, Gansey could practically see Blue puffing up in indigence. “What’s that supposed to mean, _Henry?_ Six inches above five feet hardly makes _you_ an authority!” 

Hiding his smile, Gansey shifted and propped his head up on an arm. They were just as he imagined: Blue, arms crossed, face murderous; Henry, leaning back on his elbows and looking delicately chagrined. Just as Henry opened his mouth to deliver what Gansey knew would be a ruinous but unintentional condescension, he jumped in with:

“Why don’t we go on a road trip?”

Both of them looked up, Blue’s face morphing into darker annoyance, Henry’s into quiet delight. He wasn’t quite sure why he’d said it, but now that he had, it felt _right._

“What, you find some new magical rock in Colorado you haven’t seen yet?” asked Blue, grumpily. 

Gansey had, in fact, been compiling sites of magical rocks in America that he was looking forward to visiting, but he felt that now was perhaps not the time to mention it. “No,” he said, lifting his nose slightly in the air to indicate his absolute disdain for such an outrageous accusation. “But I thought it might be a palatable idea for the group.”

“Ah.” Blue nodded sagely to Henry. “We are but whisps to his enormous and princely mind. And,” she added in a stage whisper, “ _he’s found new rocks.”_

Now it was Gansey’s turn to furrow his brows and frown.

“Gansey Man,” said Henry lightly, “we are delighted at the idea, and will be quite open to discussing it further after we settle this extremely important debate.” He turned back to Blue.

“It’s not a debate,” said Blue, “you’re just wrong.”

Chuckling a little, Gansey fell back into the grass once more, happy that he’d at least gotten a word in edgewise. The two were a bit like having your own personal fireworks- Blue the kind that shuddered and burst in wild sparks, and Henry the kind that waited until the last second to explode, and did so full of more colors than you’d thought was possible. He decided not to voice this thought, however, partly because he was sure he wouldn’t get further than “having” and partly because Blue was already very annoyed and partly because it was too hot to open his mouth again.

The afternoon lazed on, and Ronan arrived indignantly from whatever mysterious Alone Time Business he’d been immersed in, and the four of them drifted back into the Barns for a late afternoon snack. Ronan was in a slightly better mood than when he’d left, and so treated them all to a chaotic lunchtime experience involving biscuits with root beer batter.

Gansey had seen the bottles of rootbeer when they’d arrived, and in an attempt to save Blue and Henry from the inevitable, he’d only squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, offering up one exasperated sigh. They were terrible, but they made Gansey think of gas station food, huge empty freeways and loud music and hot summer sun. 

Leaning on the kitchen counter, a joyous sort of smile teasing his lips, Gansey traced his finger through some spilled root beer, and said, “I don’t think they’ll be _that_ bad, Blue.”

Blue pursed her lips. “Unlike _some_ of us, my standards don’t start at _kitchen in the bathroom_.”

“Where else is there to put it?” Feigning polite ignorance, Gansey clapped his hands together lightly.

“Huh, I don’t know, how about _anywhere_ else? That massive first floor?” 

Ronan, crouching somewhere in the vicinity of the oven, let out a wild laugh at this.

“Unfortunately,” Gansey said pleasantly, standing up and flicking a drop of root beer off his fingers at her, “the Monmouth Manufacturing Board of Directors is not accepting improvement suggestions at this time,” here he neatly sidestepped her to avoid a jab in the ribs, “but please direct all questions and concerns to the area code _666_.” Darting out into the hallway to protest, he left Blue and Ronan to duke it out over who had to open the oven to test the olefacticiously-offending biscuits.

Gansey, out in the hall, began to meander around the house a little. Even when he’d known Ronan before Niall died, he’d only been here a handful of times. Now, walking the wide halls and peeking into little rooms, Gansey could see why Ronan loved this place. None of the usual clutter that Gansey knew so well from Ronan’s bedroom at Monmouth was present; things were tidy, but the whole house felt _lived in_. There were open books on the table in the lounge, (Gansey strongly suspected this was Adam’s work, not Ronan’s), an Aglionby jacket spread-eagle on a chair like a corpse, a half empty tissue box askew on a hall table. Gansey paused by the tissue box, straightening it absentmindedly, and examining himself in the mirror that hung above it. 

He half-expected leaves to be twined around his head, or a crown of thorns to circle his brow. _It would be fitting,_ he thought. _Circular_ , his forest heart said. _Circles and epiphanies, that’s what you are._

Offering his reflection a reflective smile, Gansey turned away. As he did so, a floorboard creaked in the hall behind him, and he whirled, hands out and fingers splayed- like roots stretching _away away away._ His heart beat it out, too: _away, away, away._

Henry, (for of course it _was_ Henry, returning from the bathroom) startled, tripped back, smacking an outstretched hand on the doorframe of the sitting room. Gansey winced, and involuntarily reached out a hand in solidarity. In an attempt to hide that all his nerves had just about given out, he tried, “Oh! I’m so sorry, are you okay?”

Blinking watering eyes, Henry raised his own hand gingerly for Gansey to inspect. “Ow. Also, I don’t think doors are meant to be that rigid.” 

A knot of guilt and apology was knitting itself together in Gansey’s gut, twisting his face to match. This was a familiar dance, born of too many nights spent celebrating a life he borrowed, and a future he couldn’t see; and his body performed its steps without fault every time. Worse, a lifetime of second chances couldn’t soften the aches left after the waltz. 

Gansey opened his mouth, about to offer a _do you need ice_ or _what do you need_ or _how can I help please let me help._

To Gansey’s surprise, (and Henry’s) Henry arrived first to his words, and, paired with a knowing look, he said, a little forlornly, “Alas, my poor hand. It will only heal with the kiss of a king.” His mouth quirked a little, and for a just a moment, Gansey’s heart stopped.

This time, with a halfhearted protest already poised on his tongue, Gansey opened his mouth to speak. Once again, however, Henry got there first. 

With a gentle shake and incline of his head, he corrected, “Ah, my apologies. The kiss of a _prince_ will do just fine.” He offered his hand to Gansey, palm down, a gentle bend in his elegant wrist.

“I thought _you_ were the prince among men,” Gansey replied, having finally regained use of his words. But he brought his hand to Henry’s, and grasped his fingertips. 

The space between them wasn’t electric. Gansey’s skin didn’t spark, and the world didn’t stop itself turning for them. The muted sounds of Blue and Ronan banging around in the kitchen, the hum of the air conditioning, and their quickened breaths, were all just barely audible over the beating of Gansey’s own heart. 

But, as it always was with Henry, where the environment was ordinary, the gesture was divine. It was all the simplicity of 5 o’clock sunlight and old books without names on their covers, and inside, Gansey’s heart was fracturing _over and over and over and over_ and he found he couldn’t make it stop and _he_ _didn’t want to._

Sunlight trickled traitorously into his heart, and the little sapling he’d condemned stretched its thin branches out greedily; a baby bird learning _vitality_ even as the sky fell around it. _Well,_ he thought _, now you’ve done it. Can’t be blamed for trying to keep something alive in all this death, I suppose._

His fingers lightly grazed Henry's palm. From the kitchen, there came a crash and a wicked laugh.

His heart beat out _this second, this second, this second._

He bowed, and brought Henry’s knuckles to his lips. A ghost of a breath, and then- and _then-_ Gansey looked up through his lashes at Henry, and found him looking back. 

It was too much. He let go of Henry’s fingers and straightened, fighting to keep his face under control; _boy_ over _forest_ ; _second_ over _second_. When he finally composed himself and looked back at Henry, he found the other looking at him, a curiously contemplative expression on his face.

“Thank you,” Henry said, with a funny little smile. “A kiss from a prince never fails to remedy _something_.” Exhaling softly, he smoothed his palms down his jeans. “Shall we return to our court, my liege?”

Finally, Gansey cracked a smile, and the tension broke, like a gentle breeze finally, affectionately, ruffling the grass on an exceptionally hot day. They set course for the kitchen, letting their steps fall into alignment. Their shoulders bumped a few times, and they shared glances and giggles before the racket in the kitchen dragged them outside of themselves. 

The scene that greeted their eyes was absolute chaos. A baking tray, bereft of biscuits, lay warped on the floor, while a single half-baked biscuit was oozing slowly down the wall over the sink opposite the oven. The trashcan next to the dishwasher was being guarded fiercely by Blue while Ronan, squatting, tried to get past her to reach it. Blue didn’t look up when the boys entered, but kept her gaze locked on Ronan. He feinted to one side. She caught his arm and narrowed her eyes; a thin, sharp smile unfolding on her face.

Before Ronan could try again, Henry cleared his throat. “I was returning from an expedition to the restroom upstairs,” he said, “and I couldn’t help but hear a disturbance.”

“Oh,” said Blue, blocking another of Ronan’s attempts to get past, “I hadn’t noticed.” Ronan huffed at this, and she began to laugh. “They belong in the trash!” She said to him, poking him gently in the chest, “And besides, do you really think anyone will eat them _now?”_

Throwing up his hands and allowing himself to fall back to a low crouch, Ronan presented the room with his best scowl. (Gansey knew it was only his good-natured scowl, but it was still an impressive performance.) “I was only trying to do something _nice_ for once,” he sneered. And pointing at Henry, who’d gasped theatrically on ‘ _nice_ ,’ he added, “Don’t get all soft on me, Cheng. You’ll need to be ready to keep this one,” he jerked his head toward Blue, “in check on that fucking road trip, man. Tree-boy over here probably couldn’t tell her no if it was wearing a red satin fucking tie.”

Gansey laid a hand over his heart delicately. “I’m not sure what that means, but I feel I am within my rights to feel affronted.”

“Don’t be,” said Blue, stepping around Ronan to open the refrigerator. “It’s useful to have you around.” As she rummaged inside the fridge, her voice floated out, somewhat muffled. “You know, for looks.” She emerged with a blueberry yogurt and a spoon. Hopping up on the counter, and pointing her spoon at Ronan, who was still on the floor, she asked, “Why do you keep spoons in the fridge?”

“Also,” Henry jumped in, coming to stand next to Blue, “how old is that yogurt?”

Ronan grinned. Gansey pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“Dream yogurt?” Now Blue was grinning too, and Henry was laughing. As Gansey looked at them all, he felt a small, fundamental shift in the weight of his being. The sapling reached, not towards the light, this time, but towards the earth, towards the _center_ of Gansey’s being. And as Henry threw back his head in silent laughter, and Ronan stretched out on the floor, and Blue swung her feet to make them hit the cupboards and Gansey _looked_ , new roots stretched out tentatively into this beautiful place he’d found.

 _A place to grow from_ , he thought. _A home_. 

The tears came so easily, he thought they might’ve been stars, for a moment.


	3. Snarled in Stars and Tangled in Tree Roots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which they sit underneath the stars and eat pizza because they are Young and Free and also because i am jealous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is of course from our lovely queen, maggie stiefvater

Gansey and Blue sat in the Pig, which idled in the Nino’s parking lot, waiting for Henry to emerge from the squat little brick building. Adamant refusal from Blue to enter the restaurant and an exhausted appeal from Gansey delegated the task to Henry. 

So, they waited. 

Gansey squinted at his watch. The gleaming face reflected the neon  _ OPEN!  _ sign on Nino’s door, but after some tilting, he coaxed it to read 10:34 pm. Blue’s face was turned away from him, her arms crossed, wisps of hair stuck out about her face like so many cobwebs and Gansey loved her then.

“ _ Blue _ ,” he said, because he couldn’t help it.

“Gansey,” she sighed, because she loved him for it.

She turned to him.

“Is it better this way?” breathed into the space between them, and Gansey’s heart broke, just a little. “Is it better that we’ll never know?” They were inches apart, leaning into each other’s air over the Pig’s gearbox.

Gansey touched her cheek with one finger, reverently; like one reaches out to touch a splash of sunlight on a windowsill, even though it’s not really there. 

“If I ever have a death wish,” he whispered, throat full of static, “I’ll call you.” 

She closed her eyes, and Gansey studied her face. Indents traced over her left eyebrow, telling the visceral story of a dead boy’s fingers, and his heart twisted at the memory. Her eyelashes rested just above her cheeks, and a few scattered freckles traced a line down to her mouth. Gansey could still feel her lips on his, insistent and damning. 

It was so unfair.

Knuckles tapped on the window at Gansey’s left, and both Blue and Gansey jumped back from each other guiltily, though they’d done nothing at all. On the other side of the glass, Henry smiled innocently and held up two massive takeout bags. Fumbling for the button, Gansey unlocked the doors, and Henry slid into the backseat.

“Your lord and savior has arrived, my dear partisans. Feast your eyes upon  _ this _ !” He shoved down the sides of the bags, exposing two extra-large pizza boxes. The smell filled the car, and Blue took a deep breath, groaning.

“I _really_ _wish_ I hated that smell. But it’s so _good_. _Fuck_.” She ran a hand haphazardly through her hair, and Gansey had to look away. He put both of his hands on the steering wheel.

Some more rustling of plastic accompanied Henry’s next words. “Drive on, Ganseyman. Take us to where we need to go.”

He put the car in gear.

He would take them where they needed to go.

Where they needed to go turned out to be a second parking lot, several blocks down the road. This time, though the parking lot had a few very conveniently stacked crates and a rusty old fire escape on the backside of a hotel, a fact which Ronan had discovered and Blue adored.

Gansey had been against it, previously, before they’d discovered the pool.

The hotel was empty, an unfinished project begun by one of those out-of-towners who’d arrived with big dreams, a rather large wallet, and terrible follow-through. When he’d blown through all his money on the framework, and his son had been kicked out of the public school, he’d left Henrietta, his half-finished hotel the only reminder of his existence. No one had bothered to raise the funds to finish the job, so the hotel stood empty, its windows gaping and vines creeping into the rooms from the hill behind.

Blue had told them all this in breathless whispers, the first night they’d climbed into the barren billiard room. Gansey had shivered, unsettled by the unknown man’s unknown legacy. How many people and things had  _ he  _ himself left behind, unknowingly? 

Tonight, as Henry climbed gingerly to the top of the shipping crates, (they were sticky in some places, and he was squeamish) Gansey stood underneath, holding the pizza boxes. 

“We should,” Henry huffed, “have got it delivered.” He hauled himself up the last one, then reached a hand down for Blue. She took it, and hauled herself up. 

“Beep beep,” said Gansey, stretching up on his toes to hand Henry the boxes. “Do I have to be the cute delivery boy now too?” 

“No,” said Blue, “you sound far too satisfied with yourself for that, so  _ no _ . Also, never say cute again. You’re too old.” 

“Too late,” Gansey huffed, taking a running jump, and missing the top crate so spectacularly, that Henry let out a whoop. Shaking his head, he tried again, this time leaping gracefully enough to land without crushing the pizza boxes. Mostly.

Henry ruffled his hair affectionately. “You can be  _ my _ cute delivery boy, bro. Don’t worry about her.”

Gansey opened his mouth to reply, but his brain had short circuited at Henry’s touch. How unfair it was that Henry could bring him so quickly to his moment,  _ this moment _ , and keep him here. Each second was  _ one second per second and this and this and look, don’t you see, the present isn’t so bad after all, is it, Ganseyman?  _ It was to  _ breathe in and breathe out  _ and  _ everything will be alright, in the end.  _

Except for this. This wouldn’t end well; there was no way it could. It would just ruin everything. He’d lain awake at night thinking about this new sapling, (it was steadily becoming a healthy young tree, but who was he to say his true feelings aloud in his mind) and he couldn’t see any end besides a terrible severing of branches, tearing out of roots. Henry would refuse, gently, as he did everything, and Blue would…

Blue would mind. Blue and Gansey were _right_ together, and didn’t that mean he wasn’t right for anyone else? They were endgame; happily ever after.

_ But couldn’t he have his happily ever after like  _ this _ too?  _ a sneaky little voice in his mind asked.  _ Why not both? _

And, as his eyes closed in silent deference, weak under Henry’s light touches through his hair, he let himself feel it, a little. A wave of want that hit him square in the chest, like a bullet, out there in the empty parking lot of the empty hotel. 

A terrible screeching clamour filled the air, and a moment later, when Gansey’s eyes had flown open, Blue was hanging from the fire escape, sputtering. 

Gansey pushed to his feet and tapped the heel of one of Blue’s shoes. “Is my fair lady in need of a little assistance?” he asked, tugging on her boot. It was blue, and sparkled a little in the moonlight. She kicked a little, and he pulled, and Henry took her other boot, and together, they pulled her back to earth. 

“Well,” she said, puffing, “I hope it’s worth the climb again. My arms hurt like a  _ bitch  _ after last time.” And with that, she began to climb. 

Henry and Gansey exchanged a look, both quirking their lips in silent amusement.

“I can  _ hear  _ you smiling at each other,” said Blue, from further up the ladder, but it wasn’t exasperated. It wasn’t even vaguely annoyed- just rather fond.

Gansey opened an arm towards the ladder, and Henry nodded. They climbed the rest of the way in silence, their huffing breaths the only thing heard under the gleam of that summer moon.

By the time they reached the roof that looked out over Henrietta, every one of them was out of breath. They picked their way around the arm of a massive tractor-crane carcasses, and as they did so, fear clutched at their throats. In the dark, the arm of the crane looked monstrous, trailing over the edge of the roof to the body abandoned in a pile of lumber far below. Gansey took a quiet, shaky breath as he passed it. 

_ Just a crane _ , he told himself as he quickened his steps,  _ just a crane.  _

Around piles of long-forgotten tools and unfriendly-looking stacks of long-rusted piping they wound, until finally they reached the corner of the roof that met the hill in the back. Here, they spread out their (Blue’s) towel, turned on Gansey’s lantern, and reverently laid out the pizza, tangling themselves together under the stars. 

“Hey,” said Blue, from her place on Gansey’s belly, “Henry?”

He looked up at her. He was lying flat on his back, and the glow from the LED lantern warmed his face. His glasses reflected the stars. “Yeah?”

“Can you pass me another piece of the cheese?”

He groaned good naturedly, heaving himself up to grab the edge of one box. Passing a slice to Blue, he said, “Anything for the king?”

Gansey had been silent for quite some time. He was quite overcome by the stars, and the silhouettes of the trees and the quiet brilliance of laying under the stars with people one loves. A radiant sort of happiness overcame him then, bubbling up beneath his ribs as he looked at Blue’s lovely rumpled hair and bright eyes; as he looked at Henry’s sweet glasses and stupidly absurd Marvel t-shirt. They were joyous and young and  _ beautiful _ and if he knew a sonnet for them he would have said it.

Instead, he said, “Let’s go on a road trip.”

“Alright,” said Blue.

“And so it shall be,” said Henry.

They laid under the stars for a long time that night. It was a beautiful and perfect thing, though the mosquito were terrible. Gansey supposed it had to be like this; if there was such all-encompassing joy, there had to be a balancing force. He thought about this as they tucked their things under their arms haphazardly, and picked their way, giggling and falling into each other, back over the now-familiar roof. Each piece of lumber now felt like a friend; they’d shared an experience after all. He thought about the weight of living, and how every feeling that exploded in his chest felt like a supernova, condensed; shattering his fear and embedding their dazzling, vital poison into his very soul. 

Perhaps he was an aestheticist. Wracking his brains, Gansey recalled dimly a session of English Lit; Oscar Wilde and his paintings in his attics. Or perhaps it was wallpapers… He stepped over a pile of large discarded screws, and suddenly clapped a hand to his forehead, exclaiming, “Lord Henry!”

“Yes?” Henry halted and turned around, offering a dramatic flourish of his beanie.

Gansey blinked at him distractedly. “Oh, you too, I suppose. I meant Oscar Wilde’s Henry… but you can be my lord, if you so wish.” His voice lilted upwards at the end, so Henry could slip out of the box if he wanted.

Henry smiled his slow smile, and Gansey’s heart turned over, stuttered, caught, and began to beat fervently once more. 

“I can dig that, man. A lord… what does that make you, Blue?’

“Easy,” she said, smiling, “I’m the queen.” There was a little queer tilt to her mouth that told Gansey that he was being quite transparent. He wondered, despite himself, what Henry saw in his face.

  
As they drove away that night, stereo turned to some pop-station so that Blue and Henry could screech along with it, Gansey added a mental post-it note to his mental journal.  _ “It appears”  _ he wrote, _ “that trees grow under moonlight quite well, if given the chance. Must conduct more experiments, however. The evidence so far is enlightening, but as yet inconclusive.”  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading!! i really enjoyed writing this. this chapter also inspired me to perhaps start working on a podfic for this fic!! let me know if that's something you'd like to see! (or hear, rather.)  
> stay safe out there y'all


	4. Spill Sunlight Like a Suitcase

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the thanks in the world to my lovely beta!!

The door of Monmouth Manufacturing burst open. Just across the threshold was a red faced Blue, awkwardly holding an unwieldy suitcase. Both Henry and Gansey looked up at her, surprised. The latter smiled at her from his perch on top of the pool table, while the former waved from his balancing act between the houses and shopfronts of his miniature Henrietta.

Blue stepped over the threshold, and attempted, without much success, to pull the suitcase after her.

“Well, what’s all this about?” asked Henry, clapping his hands and jumping down from the pool table. Little clouds of dust poofed up around his shoes when he hit the ground; they twirled, illuminated in the early morning sunlight resting in patterns on the concrete. “Are you moving in at last?”

Blue and her suitcase paused in their wild, physical argument with the old metal doorstop. She turned, eyebrows meeting in consternation. “What?”

“Um,” said Henry, eloquently, gesturing to her suitcase. “What’s that?” 

“A smoothie,” replied Blue cooly, turning her back on him and resuming her struggle.

Gansey’s hand stilled on a wayward porch swing as he watched this dance unfold. He sat motionless as Henry stared at her for a moment longer, and then turned his querulous eyes on him. Every line of his body was held taut between  _ I should help _ and  _ I don’t want to intrude. _ Gansey gave him a helpless look, eyes wide as if to say  _ Honestly I’m not sure either, best to wait and see if she asks for help _ . Henry blinked several times, nodded vehemently, and turned back to Blue.

It was the first time, Gansey realized, he and Henry had communicated like this, like they were confidantes instead of new friends, fresh out of English 9 and eager to impress. He pondered this for a moment, lost to the world, before a loud clatter drew him back to his senses. 

Blue, the suitcase, and the old doorstep had concluded their argument, and it was evident that no party had found the answer satisfactory. The former glared murderously at the offending strip of metal, and rose indignantly from the floor, rubbing her elbow. The suitcase lay open on its back, contents spilling out over the bare concrete. Gansey could just see the worn edge of a book peeking over a few rumpled t-shirts. 

Henry, unfrozen, now started forward to help, hands skating the air around Blue as if he could diagnose the points of hurt so simply. Gently batting his hands away, she stalked back to the suitcase, eyeing it distastefully. 

“Well,” she said finally, surveying the mess with her hands on her hips, “This isn’t a great start.”

  
  


Eventually, once they’d got Blue to drape herself dramatically across the pool table, and Henry had produced Robobee, and Gansey had corralled his anxiety back inside his ribs, she explained. 

_It had been_ _his idea_ , she said, in her defense. As if Gansey should have known that an innocuous suggestion from _him_ could never truly be without power. (He did know this, and he felt a little less bad over it than he probably should have.) _And_ , she continued, one hand passionately jabbing the air between the pool table and the high ceiling, _he hadn’t picked a day, so she’d simply taken the initiative._

Without thinking it necessary to apply to anyone for their choice of day (none of them had anything to do, anyway) Blue had planned the kick off of their road trip for that morning, and arrived accordingly when the sun was lazy, bright, and still low enough over the hills to be accurately considered ‘morning.’

Once Gansey had snorted and gave Blue the subsequent honors for being the most obviously put-together of the three, he pressed them both earnestly. Did they  _ really _ want to go? It was alright if they had other plans, it had only been an idea anyway, they couldn’t  _ all  _ go gallivanting off around the country at a moment’s notice. 

Every night since the Barns, an hour of Gansey’s insomnia had been devoted to his own mind and its ceaseless, incessant circles.  _ How odd, _ Gansey had mused, between one irreverent thought and the next,  _ that we can be so circular in thought, and yet march so immutably forward with every breath?  _

He had lost his certainty, forgotten what it was like to be confident in his thoughts, to believe what his own heart told him. Perhaps  _ this _ was the price he’d paid for his audacity to stand up; alive. Again, again.

But between one anxious breath and the next, Blue said “I want to go,” and Henry smiled, bright and easy, and that was that. The restless thing that lived inside of him was stilled, calmed, soothed, and Gansey could breathe, again.

“So,” Henry said, clapping his hands. The noise was vivid amidst the quiet, like the sunbeams that streamed, strongly now, through the high, yellow-tinted windows. “How does one pack for an All-American Road Trip? Blue? Any suggestions?” He directed his gaze to her suitcase, still open and jumbled, but resting closer to miniature Henrietta than before.

“Books,” offered Gansey.

“I thought you would have said mint,” said Blue, her hand falling swiftly through the air to land on the pool table, as if cut from a string.

“Can’t fit it in a suitcase,” he shot back, but without any heat.

She grinned. “Not with that attitude, old man.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M BACK.  
> Not going to lie, I sort of fell out of favor with this story as I worked on other projects and *cough* school. BUT!! Thanks to several of your comments I am back and I have an outline! I was scared to continue this story because I didn't have a definitive place to go, but now I have one!! Thanks so much for your lovely comments. I'll see you soon with another chapter :)


	5. The Divine Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gansey confronts some feelings, and Ronan confronts Gansey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epic thanks to my lovely, lovely beta Ghost_Honey!! She is the bee's knees and has saved you all from reading sentences that I mushed together and forgot about.

There was a sound, Gansey thought, coming from somewhere in the world outside his headphones. He’d been wondering about its source for quite some time, but as the playback of “Falling” by the illustrious Harry Styles was sacrosanct, he hadn’t even considered moving. (Even though it had been on repeat for quite some time. Possibly days.) 

Besides, he was in no condition to see anybody. Gansey knew that if he opened his mouth, a delightful stench fit only for Mordor and possibly Azkaban would roll out. 

Furthermore, he was still in his hiking clothes, dust caked in his hair, boots toed off haphazardly along the path to his bed. 

Additionally, he was morose. 

Over a month had passed since the discovery of Glendower; over a month since Gansey’s re-re-birth. A few weeks of that time devoted to graduation and its subsequent fallout. Then, the first high of summer, all breathless and wonderful and golden. And now? Now… the comedown.

Blue: back on her Nino's shifts. (Gansey’s impending doom had eclipsed a majority of responsibilities within his direct social circle, and Nino’s simply hadn’t made the List of Things More Important Than True Love.) Ronan: sulking. Adam, of course: sent off in style to Harvard. 

And Henry?

Well… _Henry_ was unoccupied. 

In the weeks following Gansey’s not-death, Henry and Gansey canvassed the hills and fields and woods surrounding Henrietta. They crawled up and down the sides of mountains in the Pig, the car protesting every step but still managing to roar home just as loudly as ever. Lazily, they traced their way through the countryside, relishing the weather, the sky, the trees, and each other’s company.

But. 

_But._

Gansey could have happily spent all his days in such a manner, cavorting about the country, basking in the inherent magic of old trees and young men, illustrious and ghostly.

And there it was.

And he was afraid.

Afraid of the divinity he found in extraordinary sunrises and long, hot afternoons. Afraid that the tree inside him was too large, too weighty, too _much_ to be allowed. _Surely_ , he thought, _this happiness is not all for me. It is too much to bear._

It was too much, and not enough. 

_“This is divine.”_

_The words slipped out of his mouth, gained weight and form as they hit the air outside his lips. Gansey kept looking out the window, like he’d meant the sunset, all along._

_After a moment’s silence: “Yes.”_

_If he were Blue, Henry would have laughed good-naturedly at him. And then he would have reached over to hold his hand and told him he looked just as divine as the meadow spread before them anyway._

_But Henry wasn’t Blue. (And oh, how damning that was.)_

_Robobee buzzed drowsily through Gansey’s open window, startling him. Unperturbed, it dipped and drifted along, alighting finally on the dashboard above the old radio, soaking up the afternoon warmth. Its wings fluttered now and then, and each buzz was a little shock to Gansey’s heart._

_He closed his eyes._

If you cannot be afraid, be afraid and happy.

_Sun streamed in through the windshield, cutting late-angled shadows across the Pig’s seats and their occupants. Henry, in the driver’s seat, one hand draped over the steering wheel, staring off at the sun where it dropped low over the horizon. Gansey, in the passenger seat, watching Henry’s eyelashes dip low over his eyes; watching him bite his lip; tap his fingers lightly across the leather wheel._

_The sun melted brilliantly into his face, reflected in a million rays across his eyes. A few strands of hair, come unstuck during their morning romp through Devil’s Backbone, drifted down over his eyes. Gansey’s fingers ached, longing to touch._

_It was not such a strange feeling. He felt the same compulsion with Blue, she and all her funny spikes, her crocheted leggings and bottle-cap shirts. It was an echo, but wholly new. De-ja-vu, but forward. Or perhaps backward. Or perhaps it didn’t matter very much at all._

_Because Henry faced Gansey, his face all incandescent, happiness radiating off him like sun breaking first frost. Eyes flicked over Gansey’s face._

_A hardly contained smile broke over Gansey’s face, as a wave finally cresting over an embankment. He opened his mouth a fraction, words darkening his tongue; blood pooling in his mouth._

_He would not despoil this day._

Don’t throw it away.

_Fear rose in his throat, hot and heavy behind his ruinous words. Heartbeat ratcheting up._

  
What am I doing?

_Henry’s fingers slid off the steering wheel, his body shifting to face the right side of the car. His hands resting in his lap. A thin line of thread around his left wrist._

_Expectation simmered in the sunset._

_Swallowing his bloody treatise, Gansey attempted neutrality._

_“What’s that?”_

_The sharp clarity of his voice, so wholly in contrast to the previous weighty silence, prompted Gansey to raise an involuntary hand to his mouth in an attempt to restore the balance._

_Henry followed Gansey’s gaze down._

_“Oh, this?” He raised his hand to ornament the air between them. On his wrist lay a thin bracelet, no more than a few strands of red string knotted together. “It’s just a bracelet. I made it last night.”_

_Furrowing his brows, Gansey asked, “What’s it for?” Petulant. That’s what he was._

_“Oh,” Henry told him, “It’s to remember this summer.”_

_There was a beat of silence. Gansey physically restrained himself from asking what about this summer,_ this magical summer, _could be summed up so neatly in red string. It was, though, he thought, as he gazed at it, quite a pretty thing. Neat. Tidy. A sum of dates and motion and_ time _encapsulated, described, in a loop of string._

_His ears rang, his heart trembled, and the sun sank lower in the sky._

_“Can I have one?”_

~

Gansey held up his arm in the weak moonlight filtering through his window. The thin bracelet fell to its circumference at his mid-forearm, the bead at its center resting like a whispered sin against his hot skin. In this light, it looked grey.

He dropped his arm.

What was there to remember? His very existence was a constant reminder of this year’s exploits (or achievements, depending on whom you asked) and the past few months he’d simply been gallivanting his fancy self around Virginia in his fancy car with his (admittedly fancy) friend with his friend’s fancy robotic bee.

 _Drifting_. He was drifting. Rudderless, directionless; the sun speeding towards the horizon even while Gansey stayed floating, face-up, in a slow-moving, endless river.

Out of habit, he glanced at the clock that came to rest each night on a haphazard stack of Welsh fairy-tales. 

_4:27_

Letting his head sink back into the pillow and closing his eyes, Gansey allowed Harry Styles's melodic voice to wash over him. Sound outside be _damned_ , he was _sulking._

_What am I now?_

_What am I now?_

_What if I'm someone I don't want around?_

_I'm fallin' again_

_I'm fallin' again_

_I'm fallin'..._

Gansey was rudely jostled from his sulk mere moments later, one earbud ripped out of his ear as he was pulled roughly to a sitting position. Spluttering, he attempted to wrest his phone from his assailant.

“Gansey, _Gansey,_ it’s _me_ , you fuck, stop punching me!” 

Gansey stilled, squinting up.

“ _Ronan?”_

“There was doubt? Who else has a key to this apartment, Dick?” he asked, stepping back. “Not Cheng.”

Gansey let himself fall back against his rumpled pillows. “No,” he said, closing his eyes, “he doesn’t.”

“Hey,” Ronan said, “don’t fall asleep on me _now_.”

“Why?” Gansey was already drifting away, equally distant from _awake_ as he was from _asleep._

“We’re going on a drive.”

Gansey opened his eyes, blinked once. Twice. “What?”

It’s only when the light finally stretches its first fragile fingers over the back fields of The Barns that Gansey finally wheedles the answer out of Ronan. 

Ronan viciously rips up a blade of grass and throws the pieces away. “Look, man, you’ve been… I don’t even know. You’ve been _distancing_ yourself, if you want to call it that. I just-” he opens his mouth a few times, thumbnail flicking pointer finger, agitation made physical. 

“Whatever’s going on… whatever _this―”_ he waves a hand in a vague circle around Gansey and the entire surrounding area, “― _is_ , I want you to know you can― you can fucking _talk_ about it, man. I know that’s like, _so_ _rich_ coming from _me_ , but…” he trails off, picking at his leather bracelets. “Y’know.”

Gansey stares at him. The entire paragraph, voiced into actuality in the cold dawn, is so much _more_ than he's gotten from Ronan in the past few months, maybe even the past year. It dawns on him, then, as the sun crests the hill, that he hasn’t seen Ronan for almost two weeks. What has he been doing? Out here, all alone. 

The more Gansey looks at Ronan, however, the more he can see the _happiness_ . Underneath his current concern, his furrowed brows, the change is striking. The way joy peeks out of his mouth, hides in the crevices at the corners of his eyes. Even in the incessant bounce of his knee where it lays akimbo on the grass― Ronan’s _happy_ here, _happy_ for once. 

Closely after joy and pride, it hits Gansey: Ronan’s checked in enough to notice Gansey’s checked _out._

_Don’t let go._

Ronan’s so happy, after all. It would be a shame to ruin it.

So he smiles, and it’s not that hard. “I do.”

Ronan frowns. “What?”  
“I do know.” He takes a breath. Lets it go. Looks away. “Now, I mean. I get it.” 

“Oh. Okay.” 

A bird, hidden in the dense trees away to their left, tweets loudly. 

“But, um, thanks,” Gansey says, finally.

“Yeah. no problem.”

Except that it is, or _should_ have been; _was_ . Gansey is no stranger to the dark, twisting serpents that bind Ronan’s tongue, who let it loose only at the most disastrous moments. But this confession, this _acceptance._ It feels like a fluttering bird; an exhale; a step in a thousand mile journey towards home. They sit in comfortable silence, just watching the sun daub its daybreak hues over everything it can reach.

Gansey feels the warmth on his face, breath catching in his throat. Everything’s beautiful, really. Ronan, kept up until he’s stupid, the sharp angles of his face soft under the dawn. Gansey wonders if _he’s_ beautiful here. Probably. The light’s working wonders on the _cows_ that have wandered into their pasture, so suffice to say _he’s_ probably at least a little radiant himself, this morning. He has half a mind to ask Ronan, but he decides neither of them are tired enough to live _that_ down.

Shaking his head as if to clear away the odds and ends of thoughts that are rattling around in there, Gansey turns his focus outward once again. He admires the molten treetops, smiles at the dewy grass around them, even as he notices how its seeped into his pants while he was unsuspecting.

A question occurs to him, suddenly, and he turns back to Ronan.

“Why’d you kidnap me? It was the middle of the night!”

“Oh, like you _sleep_.”

~

“What’s that?” Blue asks as she peers over Gansey’s shoulder. 

Gansey, sitting cross-legged on the floor of Monmouth, pauses in his comparison of _The Secret History_ and _Hamlet_ , and cranes his head around to look at her. “What?” 

Blue gestures vaguely at his lap. “ _T_ _hat.”_

“Hamlet?” He picked up the offending text, weighing it a little.

“I would have thought you would have better taste, but no.”

Gansey blinked, mouth hung open slightly, eyebrows furrowed. Hamlet? Surely there wasn’t anything too terrible about _Hamlet._ “Now, I don’t see how-”

Sighing, Blue got to her feet. “No, oh my God. _That,”_ she said again, this time pointing more directly at his wrist. 

Gansey sets down his books and shakes back imaginary sleeves. (He misses autumn desperately.) Blue catches his hand. 

“There,” she says, turning it over. “What is that.”

Gansey’s skin is tanned from romps at the Barns, and freckles adorned the path from his red knuckles to his wrist. Sun-kisses, his mother had called them, when she’d called them anything at all. And there, over the bone of his wrist, lies a bracelet. 

It’s innocuous, just a few strands of pink and yellow embroidery thread twined together, overlapping and running into one another like a river. _Or trunks, growing together_. It already shows signs of wear; little pebbles of lint caught on the threads, and there’s a papery sort of quality to the strings themselves.

Blue turns his wrist over, gently. There, where his veins grow together like so many roots: a little bead. Plastic, round, and brimming with silver sparkles. String, knotted, childlike, wraps around it. And there, next to this bead, lies another. _H_ , this one says.

“Oh,” says Blue.

Gansey doesn’t reply for a moment. Then, self consciously, he rubs his wrist and turns to face her. “You don’t like it?” Asked bracingly. Not too much emotional stake in it. Just… a question.

“Oh,” she says again. Then, composing herself: “No! It’s just… not something you’d normally wear.” She tells him this very carefully, as if expecting an adverse reaction.

“Well,” he says, inhaling, “I’m wearing it.”

His words hang in the air, in that dusty space between them.

Blue gives him a strange look, her eyebrows furrowed and a little twist of a smile on her lips. 

“Alright.”

“I- what?”

“Okay.” She pats his shoulder twice, then leans on him to push herself up. 

“Also,” she calls as she meanders over to his desk to filch a mint leaf, “You should bring _Julius Caesar._ We can act it out.”

“Oh yeah? Who are we stabbing?”

Blue plops in his desk chair and puts her feet up on his desk, leaning her head back until she can see him. “Henry.

Gansey pauses. “For what?”

“For being too pretty.”

Gansey nods his head a little, good-naturedly, (as if this information does not shake him to his core, falling down and coming to rest somewhere around his hands) and turns his attention back to his books. Inside, however, there’s a curious sensation like he’s putting down roots, and he doesn’t know how to stop them. They inch down towards the cold floor of Monmouth, twine around Blue, and stretch deep into the mountains of Henrietta. 

He swallows, and puts _Hamlet_ aside.

He’s throwing it away, throwing all this _future_ away in favor of falling. 

_But what a glorious fall it is._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A happy belated holiday to my US friends! You're getting this now because I had time to write over the holiday break lol.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading!! I literally live for your comments and kudos. Thanks for caring about this story and these lovely people who are falling into each other more with every passing day.

**Author's Note:**

> **(Note, as of December 14th, 2020) Thank you so much for reading! This fic is currently on hiatus until March 2021, when the author will have more braincells and more time to do this fic justice. They fully plan on finishing it, (they even have an outline!!) and hope you return to enjoy it then! Excelsior, dear readers, and may you read many a good fic before we meet again.


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